**4.4 Sources of fuelwood**

The sources of fuelwood in the district are communal forests, private forests, farms and timber residues. The distance to the fuelwood sources ranged from 1.1km for the less poor and slightly well-off households and 2.25 km for the 'poor' categories. The average distance for all respondents was 1.40km. The short distance for accessing fuelwood by the slightly well off and less poor is partly because a high proportion of them have private forests near their homes. Most people in the district use fuelwood from their own planted trees. Communal land is very limited in the district.

A high proportion of the communal forests have been severely degraded which makes fuelwood not easily available. Women spend 3-4 hours looking for fuelwood. This means that households with biogas facility were saving 3-4 hours wasted in collecting fuelwood. The saved time is used for other economic activities (e.g. farming and marketing) as well as leisure (e.g. resting and listening to the news and other entertainment). On the other hand, if the use of biogas for cooking will increase the demand for fuelwood in the district may decrease which is likely to benefit the poor because most of them do not have dairy cattle for biogas plant installation.
